


“Agent Shaw Versus the First Rule”

by Polgarawolf



Series: The Truth About Chuck [4]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alliances, Asset(s), Central Intelligence Agency, Comfort, Comic References, Concern, Desire, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Fulcrum, Grief/Mourning, Handler(s), Intersect, Intersect 2.0, Knows Better Than This . . ., Lack of Emotional Control, Lies, Loss, Love, M/M, Masks, Mission(s), NSA, Partnership, Pop Culture, Reconciliation, Sci-Fi References, Secrets, Sharing, Sibling Love, Siblings, Sparring, Spies & Secret Agents, Talking, Technology, Temptation, Training, Trust, Unrequited Love, Worry, reassurance, the ring - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-07
Updated: 2010-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary:</b> This is a <i>Chuck</i> fanfic. I think of it mainly as a character study piece, myself, for Daniel Shaw (and, to some extend, for Chuck, himself, too), but I suppose that it is technically slash, though I don’t think it truly deviates from the show’s canon, all things considered. If you are not familiar with the (fairly) new TV show <i>Chuck</i>, then by all means, go forth and watch it, please. It is made of <i>awesome</i>! Oh! Also, it is probably also worth noting that, since writing this story down, I have come to consider it the fourth in a run of fanfics that all belong to the same AU ’verse wherein Daniel-Bryce-Chuck reign OT3 supreme, in case anyone is wondering!</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Agent Shaw Versus the First Rule”

**Author's Note:**

> **Story/Author's Notes: 1).** This particular plot bunny ambushed me in the midst of writing my third _Chuck_ fanfic, and, though it’s pretty much speculative as to the show’s future and the eventual holder of Chuck’s heart lies in entirely the opposite direction as in that story (and the two I wrote preceding it, too), readers might understand a little better where I got this notion if they’re familiar with that third fanfic (“Ellie Versus the So-Called Fett”). Readers should probably be aware of the fact that I write at work on my breaks and at lunch, and that I had moronic “helpers” who were moving filing cabinets and desks around in the cubicle that holds my department and apparently didn’t think it necessary to warn anyone that they might be turning the power off at some point unhook the electrical drops and therefore shut down my computer _while I was working on it_ two freaking days in a row while I was attempting to get the beginning of this story down, so it might be a little choppier and/or a bit more repetitive than it otherwise would be, due to my attempts to recreate bits that were lost.
> 
>  **2).** It made me happy to write this story. Please refrain from fussing at me about writing it. I know I should be working on a _**Star Wars**_ story (take your pick as to which one. I know there are at least four if not five I should seriously be working on, probably at this very moment) or the HP AU I’ve only written one part of or the _Criminal Minds_ series of short stories I never finished or, hell, anything but this. Life has been crappy lately. _Chuck_ makes me smile, folks, and, quite often, laugh myself silly. More people should watch this show. More people should write in this fandom. It’s a non-sci-fi show for sci-fi geeks. Trust me. It’s made of pure, unadulterated _awesome_. Writing this was cathartic, if only because it made me smile so very much. So please, _please, **please**_ refrain from grousing about how I wrote this instead of working on something else, okay? Thanks!
> 
>  **3).** I really do tend to suck at titles. Anyone having a better idea for a properly _Chuck_ -ish title for this little piece should therefore please feel free to pass it along as a suggestion, as the current title is rather makeshift!
> 
>  **4.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of my shorter non-SW works (and indeed most of my shorter stories in general, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters in various fandoms. The year should be accurate (or close to it, anyway), but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!
> 
>  **5).** Daniel Shaw’s backstory here, especially as pertains to Bryce Larkin and a certain six months, is so entirely speculative that it’s probably safest to say it’s mostly my attempt to make sense of the fact that someone who’s considered the expert in the Ring would wait so long to get involved in the Intersect project and especially the human Intersect operation (i.e., the ongoing, long-term mission of Team Bartowski), given that Chuck, as the human Intersect, has essentially been endangered by Fulcrum – a major cell of the Ring – since day one and by the rest of the Ring since Fulcrum’s dismantlement. Any and all references readers may think they’re catching to the various incarnations/’verses of _Superman_ are entirely deliberate and meant as a collective nod to Brandon Routh’s turn as the Man of Steel!
> 
>  **6).** The argument Chuck and Shaw have about the good of the many verses that of the few or the one is based on a rather famous set of quotations from _Star Trek_ movies _II: The Wrath of Kahn_ and _III: The Search for Spock_ , for those who might be unaware! Given that both boys admire sci-fi, I rather think they’d use the phrasing on purpose, due to their familiarity with the films! Also, “Farmboy” is one of the call-signs used by Luke Skywalker in the _**Star Wars**_ EU (it’s also the nickname his wife, Mara Jade, most often calls him by), which I’m sure both Bryce Larkin and Daniel Shaw would be perfectly aware of, as would Chuck (hence, the Jedi remark)!

　

**"Agent Shaw Versus the First Rule"**

When he was younger, Daniel Shaw always used to be one of those people who, if asked, would smile brightly and reply that love is the greatest power on Earth, and that love inevitably must and will conquer all.

Nowadays, though, he’s rather firmly of the opinion that the idiotic schmuck (Tennyson, he thinks, though he wouldn’t swear to that. It’s been a while since college and English Lit 101) who wrote that dreck about how it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all must’ve either never actually been fallen in love with and been in love with someone in his entire life or else, if he ever was, certainly never had to go through the agony of losing that beloved.

Dan’s loved (unwisely) and he’s lost that love (to the Ring) and he’s pretty damned sure that he’d be a lot better off if he never would’ve given in to the insane urge to try to make a go of it with a spy like Eve.

He considers himself the most natural choice (the obvious choice, truth be known) for the appointment to oversee Team Bartowski and the human Intersect 2.0, not just because he’s the Agency’s most knowledgeable resource, when it comes to the Ring (with which Bartowski, as the human Intersect, has essentially been at war since day one, via Fulcrum), but because he, of all the possible candidates for the job, understands both how foolhardy and how dangerous it can be for agents to permit themselves to become compromised by their emotions . . . especially their attachments to other agents or to assets working with them in the field. Daniel was incredibly attached to Evelyn, after all – he married her, for God’s sake – and he lost her to the Ring, not due to any lack of information, but rather because he wanted to keep her happy and so he trusted her when she assured him that it would be okay for her to continue her work as a mole in the rogue agency, even though his instincts were all screaming at him to pull her out, that it was no longer safe for her there. If anyone can curtail the increasingly dangerous tendency of both of Charles Bartowski’s handlers to put the human Intersect’s personal happiness and well-being before everything else – even their orders – then that person should be Daniel Shaw.

And that is precisely why Agent Daniel Shaw cannot even begin to understand how in the nine hells he’s managed to end up in the (shameful, dangerous, and more than a little ludicrous) position that he now finds himself, desperately in love with Chuck Bartowski and painfully aware of the fact that, even if there could by some miracle be anything like a chance that Chuck might ever fee the same way about one Daniel Shaw, he couldn’t take that chance and by God run with it even if Chuck were to throw himself at Dan wearing nothing but a big shiny red bow.

He’s losing his mind. That’s the only explanation for this. He’s pushed himself too hard for too long and he’s finally snapping under the pressure. Except . . . this doesn’t feel like buckling under pressure. Sure, it feels a lot like breaking down, but . . . it’s more like the kind of shattered feeling he remembers, from the first time he fell in love, than the meltdown he remembers suffering with exquisite painfulness, after he received the news of Eve’s death.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about it all, though, is that he’s already having trouble remembering what it was like, before that shattered feeling overtook him.

For the life of him, he can’t understand how this happened to him. Things have been going so well, with the op! Hell, they’ve been going better than well, in all honesty. The progress that he’s made with the team, especially the agents assigned to Chuck, and the progress that Chuck has made, in his transition from asset to true agent, have been both steady and rapid – far more rapid (and far more easy) than Dan’s been expecting they would be, actually, which only makes this unexpected and ridiculous turn of events all the more upsetting and insane.

Things should be settling down and getting easier, not more difficult, dammit! John Casey has already moved past his initial distrust and dissatisfaction with having a new element introduced into such a long-term engagement with so little notice (and with having that new element be a CIA Agent with greater authority than the Colonel, in matters pertaining to the overall organization of the operation and the execution of its various missions, to boot) to a grudging respect of Agent Shaw and his abilities and knowledge, and that reluctantly given deference and admiration has, furthermore, already mostly transitioned to an acceptance of Shaw and his place on the team. Evidently, all that’s required to win Casey’s approval is Chuck’s tentative acceptance of Shaw as the new boss and a couple of demonstrations of both Shaw’s not inconsiderable abilities and his willingness to drop everything and do whatever it takes to keep his agents – especially Chuck – safe.

As for Sarah Walker . . . well, she’s a relatively easy mark, all of her masks and her posturing and endless tendency to lie (or at least to tell so little of the truth and in such a way that she almost might as well be lying) aside. He had a fairly good read on her, even before meeting her, and, now that he’s been able to get a more personal feel for the woman, he’s confident that he knows precisely what makes her tick and just how to use that knowledge to get what he needs out of her, for the remainder of this operation, without too much difficulty.

She’s behaved almost exactly as he’s predicted she would, so far (with that one exception, early on in the mission, when she bolted from Castle to the Buy More, determined to try to save Chuck from the Ring operatives who’d tracked him to the store, after he surprised them by dismantling the captured Ring smart phone so that he could figure out how to turn it on and contact them, thereby drawing attention away from his brother-in-law and down on himself. She’d surprised him that one time, since he’s practically ordered her and Casey to stand down and wait, so they could see how Chuck would react to the threat on his own, and that one incidence of disobedience was all he really needed, to understand her completely. He’s positive that, with what he knows about her, he could manipulate and control her at will, however necessity might end up dictating), and that’s really all he needs from her. That her sympathy for him seems to be resulting in the kind of feeling of attachment that he’d just as soon have eradicated from the ranks of all spies is simply a bonus (however distasteful it and the use of it might be, to him. If he has to, he will use her burgeoning crush on him without a moment’s hesitation, if that’s what it takes, to help Chuck cultivate his skills to their fullest and to take the Ring down, permanently), as it will, no doubt, make her even more malleable.

This is what he _does_ – hell, this what his superiors have always told him he was made for, the kind of thing he can do so effortlessly and so superbly that it’s no wonder he was given something as important as both the Ring operation and the human Intersect operation to oversee – and the fact that he’s floundering, now, is, frankly, as upsetting as it is unexpected. He’s good at his job, and that’s not bragging. It’s the simple truth. He was good at his job even before . . . well, before the Ring. And Evelyn. He has a gift for combining all the best aspects of a data analyst, a leader, and an agent, and that’s why he’s in such a position of authority on such a delicate and important operation as this. He’s too good at what he does to be making this kind of mistake. He knows what’s at stake and he damn well _knows better_.

But it doesn’t seem to be help matters any. All the knowing better in the world and the being better than the kind of people who make stupid mistakes like this and the intimate knowledge of just how badly things could turn out, because of his weakness, doesn’t seem to be enough to stop him. He’s in love, and not all the rational arguments against it or stern mental talks to himself to stop being so foolish or orders to himself to shape up and behave responsibly seem to be able to make himself stop being in love.

First rule of spying: never fall in love. Second rule: never get too attached, either to a given place or particular cover or specific group of coworkers. Third rule: never get hung up on conventional ideas of sexuality, because if a mission calls for something, then an agent had better be able to provide, or else that agent is all too likely to swiftly become a dead agent.

He’s known, ever since he was old enough to know what the Kinsey scale is and what it measures, that he sits solidly on that scale between a two and a three. Until an alum of the Naval Academy with a daughter only a year younger than Daniel (Mary, who had a painful crush on him until he introduced her to his cousin, Michael. They’ve been married three years, now, and, the last he heard, she was expecting) moved in just down the road from his home, during his freshman year of high school, and, after noticing certain of his skills, began actively trying to recruit him for Annapolis, he’d always thought it as likely that some day he’d meet and settle down with a nice boy as it would be he’d do the same with a nice girl, and, though the Academy made certain requirements of him, his recruitment by the Agency hasn’t. He’s still on that scale somewhere between a two and a three, and, just now, his leanings towards three – and a certain Charles Irwin Bartowski – happen to be winning.

He shouldn’t even admit as much to himself (it’s asking for trouble, to think of Bryce at all, and it’s begging for trouble, to think of Chuck in such terms), but he more than understands why Bryce Larkin was (and likely is, still, if the Ring hasn’t grown tired of holding on to him in the hopes that he might one day be of use to them and simply had him executed) in love with Chuck Bartowski.

He’s not so foolish as to pretend he knows Bryce Larkin or what makes Bryce tick, even if he did spend the best half year of his life (better even than his time with Evelyn, if he’s being honest with himself. Eve he spent more time worrying about than actually able to be with, and, though he loved her desperately, he can’t exactly claim that their time together was exactly happy or harmonious) working undercover with Bryce in South America and it can still make him shiver with excitement, to remember some of the things they did, both for the job and on their own time. (Farmboy, Bryce had called him. Fresh and innocent and entirely too wholesome. "I think we need to muss that perfect hair, some. This isn’t small town Kansas, after all," he’d said, once, with one of those blinding smiles that always made Daniel Shaw have trouble breathing, because his heart was beating so rapidly. "You remind me of someone, Farmboy. That’s a good thing. I think we’re going to get along just fine," he also told him, during their first meeting, holding on to Dan’s hand just a fraction longer than necessary, giving him one of those wide, dazzling smiles. He’d been swept off his feet, and all too happy to let Bryce seduce him.)

That was one of his first missions, and definitely the best one he’s ever been on, so far (exciting in every sense of the word, and successfully accomplished), though the immediate aftermath had been . . . painful. (It still causes a pang of hurt and regret, to remember the way Bryce had looked at him, at the end of those six months and that mission, when he’d eagerly told him that he hoped to work with Bryce again, in the future. "You’re wasted in the field, Farmboy. The way you can make sense out of the tiniest fragments of data and find patterns no one else sees? Now that they have more reason to be sure of you, they’re going to have you working behind the scenes, analyzing data coming in and sending agents out to act on what you find or infer from that data. I doubt you’ll be sent on any missions like this one any time soon. And even if you are, I don’t think it’d be a good idea for us to do this again. I know you’re still fairly new to this, but even you must know there are rules. We’re spies, and we need to behave like spies. That means no attachments, my friend. Not to people; not to places or cover stories; and certainly not to any ideas you have about yourself and your limits or beliefs and moral codes, not if you want to be a spy and stay alive. We had a good time and we worked well together. But I don’t want you to think this is more than it is, Farmboy. Now, don’t look at me like that. I’m not saying this to hurt you. You’re a good kid, and you’re damned good at what you do. But I don’t want to be the reason why you get hurt. And you’ll end up getting hurt, if I let you stay attached to me. Better we end this now, on friendly terms, and walk away knowing it’s for the best.")

Daniel Shaw is just over three years older than Bryce Larkin (and this also essentially holds true for Chuck, who’s a few months younger than Bryce), but he’s not sure he’ll ever be as experienced as (or as jaded and hard as) the younger spy (who, in his opinion, also has been wasted in the field. Bryce is brilliant, and, no matter how good an agent he might be, Daniel’s always been at least a little surprised that he wasn’t assigned to a laboratory, somewhere, quite possibly working on a project like the Intersect). He used to wonder what it was that made Bryce so hard and so utterly unwilling to let other people get truly close to him. Now that he’s met Chuck – and has had to suffer through the guilt and the agony of knowing that he’s changing Chuck for the worse – he’s pretty sure that he knows at least most of the reason, now. He’s always suspected that the person he supposedly reminded Bryce of was someone from Bryce’s life before he became an agent, and that Bryce’s unwillingness to get too close to anyone has a lot to do with that person.

He’s certain of that, now. (Bryce is the best spy he’s ever known, but control only extends so far, and even Bryce would occasionally say something in his sleep. He remembers hearing soft, pained murmurs of, "Chuck," and "Please, don’t," and "I’m sorry," more than once, during those six months they were together. There were occasionally some murmurs in what he now recognizes to’ve Klingon, too, but he wasn’t expecting Bryce to be conversant in a created language, at the time, so he’s only mostly sure they were endearments, also aimed at Chuck.) And he can’t even blame Chuck, given that he’s pretty damned sure his own response to Chuck echoes that of Bryce’s reaction, only without the added complication of having that need to save Chuck from being recruited by the Agency, by any means necessary, even if it meant hurting Chuck badly. Chuck is the most open and genuine and sincere and unarguably _good_ person he’s ever met, and, like Bryce Larkin before him, he’s found himself enthralled.

Chuck is . . . _Chuck_. He’s both highly intelligent and cleverly resourceful, as well as witty and charming, with a wickedly sly sense of humor; he has actual morals and is always willing to drop everything to help other people, his generosity and willingness to give all but staggeringly selfless; he exudes good cheer and kindness and gentleness and faith in humanity; somehow, paradoxically, he manages to be almost overwhelmingly warm and charismatic while also being endearingly shy and diffident; and, dear God in heaven, but he’s gorgeous, all golden skin and dark curls and dark eyes and long, clean lines, tall and lean and fit, with muscles to spare, though they’re hardly ever visible, under all the loose, unfashionable clothes he so often wears, as if he believes there’s something shameful about his body. (Which is absolutely untrue and ridiculous, though Daniel understands, when he stops to think about it rationally, that this tendency to hide is likely linked both to the childhood label of geek, the essential absence of a stable family – though Eleanor Bartowski certainly tried to fill in the gaps – and his frankly soul-scarring experience, at Stanford, with Bryce.) This isn’t Chuck’s fault by any stretch of the imagination, though. Hell, blaming him for Daniel’s weakness would be like blaming the sky for being blue!

In a weird sort of way, looking at Chuck is like looking into a mirror showing himself, back around the time Bryce so gently but firmly let him down. ("Don’t look at me like that, Farmboy. We didn’t have to be lovers, for this op to work. We just had to be able to work closely together, and you needed to trust me. If I hadn’t genuinely liked you, it wouldn’t’ve happened. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, and neither is this one. In a different kind of world, we wouldn’t have to do this. But in a different kind of world, the Agency wouldn’t need us to be spies, either. Since we are spies, though, and I want to survive that and I want you to survive it, too, that means this is gonna have to end now, whether we want it to or not.") He’s entirely too smart for his continued safety, entirely too naïve for his continued well-being, and entirely too attractive for his own damned good, to boot.

It’s hard to avoid the comparison between himself, as he once was, and Chuck, and not just because he knows that he reminded Bryce of Chuck. It’s not just that they’re both tall and fit, with dark hair and eyes. No one who’s gotten a good look at the two of them would ever mistake Daniel Shaw for Chuck, or vice versa, not with that golden skin of Chuck’s or Daniel’s distinctly dimpled cleft chin. No, it’s more their outlook on life and their interests, and he can’t help but wonder what it might have been like, to’ve been able to meet Chuck and to make friends with him under different circumstances, back before he started to get more comfortable with violence and gunplay than he’s actually comfortable with (when he stops and thinks about it, afterwards) and the loss of Evelyn to the Ring made him so wary of getting too close to others and allowing others to get too close to him. He has a sneaking suspicion that he and Chuck would’ve been fast friends, if only they’d been able to meet under other circumstances, just a few years ago.

Daniel Shaw has always been good with computers (better with computers than with popular/beautiful people, to tell the truth. Though charismatic, he’s also somewhat shy, naturally, since he spent so many years being dismissed by his peers as just another geek, until all that swimming in combination with a massive growth spurt started gaining him more attention, during high school), he’s not a very closeted sci-fi and fantasy freak (he’s read and reread books to death, before, including classics like _Dune_ and nearly all of Tolkien’s works), he genuinely likes people and wants to be helpful to others (or at least this used to be the case, back before working for the Agency started to make him rethink his whole position on the basic innate goodness of humanity, as a whole), and, as more than one individual has pointed out before, he’s entirely too smart for his own good, sometimes. ("Adorkable boy. No, don’t laugh. You’re adorable, and you’re a dork. That means you’re adorkable, Farmboy. And it’s not a bad thing to be. One of the best people I’ve ever known is the original adorkable boy. He could do anything and get anyone to do anything he wanted, if he put his mind to it and those puppy-dog eyes to work. You’re very like him. It’s a _good_ thing.") People like him, people trust him, people respect him, and he’s as good at getting the absolute best out of others as he is out of making sense out of data that’s so fragmentary that it makes little to no sense to basically everyone else.

It’s why he’s in the position he’s in now – something halfway between a data analyst and an active agent and the person who’s responsible for setting up missions and coordinating agents and ops so that they have the best chance of succeeding with the absolute minimum collateral damage – and, as much as it embarrasses him to admit so, even to himself, he knows that it would be next to impossible for the Agency to replace him, without bringing in a helluva lot of bodies to divide the work that he alone does for them up amongst. Of course, knowing all that just makes his current predicament that much more ludicrous and that much more embarrassing. He’s better than this, for God’s sake, and he knows better, too. So why the hell can’t he get himself under control?

It’s not Chuck’s fault. There are very few things he’s absolutely sure of, when it comes to Charles Bartowski, but the boy’s cluelessness on certain matters is one of them. Chuck’s sense of self-worth is abysmal, for someone as well-adjusted and happy (not to mention warm and caring) as he otherwise is. He has a sneaking suspicion that the reason why the defensive/offensive programming of the new Intersect works only intermittently has more to do with Chuck’s self-doubts than with his emotional state. He’s also almost positive that Chuck has no idea that Bryce Larkin was and most likely is still desperately in love with him. He’s almost positive that the reason why Chuck clings to Sarah so hard (despite surely knowing better) is because the young man’s been so starved for affection (from someone besides his sister, that is. Eleanor Bartowski unquestionably loves her brother. But that’s just not enough) for so long that he honestly believes that even the attention of a constant liar whose feelings for him can’t be trusted is the best he’s going to get, and certainly better than nothing at all.

(It’s not at all fair of him, but Daniel Shaw finds it very hard to be objective, when it comes to Agent Walker and her treatment of Chuck. In fact, it would be entirely too easy to hate the woman. He worries that his distaste of the woman is wholly irrational, and is even more concerned over the possibility that he might hesitate to act in her defense and end up getting her seriously injured or even killed, if any situation should arise in which he might need to physically defend her, due to his dislike of her.)

Knowing all of these things about Chuck should, logically, make him dislike or at the very least distrust the young man, for being so weak and so easily manipulated (the easiest marks are those who desperately want a sense of affirmation and loving human contact), but somehow it only makes him want to protect Chuck and hate himself, for knowing that he’s taking advantage of the poor kid.

Faced with the reality that is Chuck Bartowski, Daniel Shaw sincerely wonders how the hell managed to make it as long as he has, in this business. Was he ever really so sweetly earnest, or so utterly clueless? No wonder Bryce always used to laugh at him teasingly about how he was farm-bred and wholesome as the day is long! When he stops to think about it – and when he really stops to contemplate just how innocent Chuck is, and how much like him he used to be (and still is, in some respects) – he can’t help but avoid the thought that it’s a miracle the reality of this career (of this life) hasn’t broken him. He suspects that Bryce Larkin has a lot to do with that, and that his survival (with both sanity and conscience relatively intact, that is) would be much more firmly assured if he could only take Bryce’s advice and follow those damnable rules about attachments.

Daniel’s done his best to stay away from anything and anyone having to do with Bryce Larkin, since those wonderful six months came to an end. It’s what Bryce wanted, and, though he unfortunately hasn’t had enough sense to take those nonattachment rules to heart (and dear God, he wishes he had! Eve was wonderful, and he loved her, but God, it hurt to lose her, and sometimes he’s not entirely sure he can trust his own motivations anymore, when it comes to the Ring, because of that loss. He’s almost certain that the small happiness they managed together wasn’t worth this kind of pain), he’s done his level best to honor that decision.

He went out of his way to avoid becoming involved in the Intersect project at all because he knew Bryce was involved in it, even though he also knew that the project had attracted the attention of Fulcrum, an agency he’d been convinced was a part of the Ring long before he had enough evidence to support that hunch to convince his superiors (a cautionary, somewhat foreboding email delivered to what should have been a secure and untraceable email address of his – _A certain ring of individuals knows far more about the supposedly secure operations of our employers than I’m comfortable with. Try to avoid entanglements, Farmboy. This could get messy fast. –_ less than a week before Bryce went off the grid, prior to snatching the Intersect, had tested his will, but he’d resisted sticking his nose in, knowing Bryce wanted him to keep clear of it). And he’d resisted becoming overtly involved with the human Intersect, once it became clear that Bryce had sent the Intersect to Chuck because of a prior relationship of trust with the young man. With Bryce taken by the Ring and Chuck’s continued safely clearly endangered by the Ring, given his pivotal involvement in the dismantling of Fulcrum, he’d no longer been able to justify his noninvolvement. At General Beckman’s insistence, he agreed to become the new head of Team Bartowski.

Now, though, he wishes to God he’d been able to find some way to refuse the appointment. He has a bad feeling this is going to end badly . . . not just for him, but for Chuck, and possibly Bryce, and maybe even the entire world, if his weakness proves to be such a distraction that the Ring succeeds in any of its long-term plans and goals. That it’s already gotten so bad that he’s felt the need to put some more physical distance between himself and (thankfully clueless) subject of his inappropriate attachment is so obviously a bad sign that he has to wonder just how blind the General must be, to not notice (or at least suspect) that something is wrong.

Sure, he technically has a reason to be doing the work he has been, since leaving the secret base of operations informally known among the members of Team Bartowski as Castle – someone has to put the information Evelyn gathered on the Ring to use, and who better for the task than him? He’s good at this, as sifting through piles of information and finding the bits that are important, at organizing missions and operatives and issuing orders to agents in the field. Plus, technically, since it involves the Ring and the human Intersect, it falls under his purview, as the leader of that combined operation, anyway – but he could also just as easily be doing most if not all of that work from the Castle location, without requiring the extra safety precautions and encryptment necessary to give him secure access to the security feeds from both Castle and Chuck’s residence. Beckman must either be a lot more tired than she’s letting on, or else she has a level of confidence in him and his abilities and professionalism than is at all warranted.

He’s afraid that, no matter how tired or stretched thin her attention might be, the General will (eventually. Inevitably) notice, sooner or later, that something’s wrong with him. The attempt to put some more distance between him and temptation isn’t working. He’s spent far too much of his time doing nothing but watching or listening to the feeds from Castle, and, even if it’s not obviously negatively affecting his work, he knows that the distraction has been slowing him down. He’s been very careful to keep track of what he’s doing, so that he won’t make any foolish mistakes, but he’s afraid that, if he has to stay away from Castle for any significant length of time, it’ll only be a matter of time before he starts slipping, and others start suffering for his inattention. Yet, he’s painfully aware that, if he returns to Castle, he’ll only be faced with yet another kind of distraction, one potentially far more dangerous.

He’s already had one encounter with Chuck in which his control was stretched nearly to the breaking point, only a few evenings after his arrival in Burbank and a day and a half prior to his assignment of a solo mission to Chuck. He’d been staying in the Castle facility, so he’d be close to Chuck and the two agents assigned to him during the day but not so close to them during the evenings that they’d feel inclined to become attached to his presence. Chuck had wandered in to the facility by himself, evidently looking for Agent Walker – or at least, it had been the sound of the young man’s voice, tentatively calling out for Sarah, that had woken Daniel from the nap he’d been taking. Slightly fuzzy with sleep and with the mild painkiller he’d taken, for the gunshot wound below his left shoulder, he risen from his bed and ghosted out into the complex, circling around to come up behind the young man, a half formed thought that this would be a good chance to check Chuck’s awareness of his surroundings and his reflexes making him tread as quietly as possible, which was essentially noiselessly, given his bare feet. Just as he’d reached for Chuck’s shoulder, though, the young man had begun to turn towards him, and evidently his indistinct form in the near darkness was enough to trigger the new Intersect, because Chuck had immediately flowed into a defensive posture that triggered his own training.

For nearly fifteen exhilarating minutes, they’d sparred – well, fought, actually, though to him it had felt more like a wonderful game, at least at first – before it finally occurred to Daniel that Chuck had no idea who he was or whether a Ring agent might’ve infiltrated the complex and might be earnestly attempting to kill him. Abruptly chagrined over his enjoyment of the battle, Daniel had dodged a blow that could’ve literally taken his head off, and switched fighting forms, throwing himself sideways as a boxer might and sliding up under Chuck’s guard, rather than continuing their all too evenly matched martial dance, gliding forward and calling out, "Chuck! Chuck, snap out of it. It’s only Agent Shaw. I didn’t mean to startle you," even as he reached up to touch the young man’s cheek, intending to angle his head so that he could make out Shaw’s face in the glow off the computers in the next room. Unfamiliar with the way in which these flashes precisely worked, he’d been unprepared for the violence with which Chuck would be jolted from his knowledge of kung fu and the reaction that this would cause, and that’s when things had truly begun to go spectacularly wrong for Daniel Shaw.

Startled out of the zone of effortless access to and use of the Intersect’s knowledge of kung fu, Chuck had blinked, gasped, taken one look at Daniel and their nearness to one another, flinched, startled backwards, stumbled sideways, wobbled violently from the sudden loss of perfect balance, staggered, tripped, and fallen heavily against his new boss, taking them both down in a tangle that resulted in Chuck ending mostly on top of Daniel. And somewhere in there, in the midst of being caught quite literally off balance and unpleasantly surprised by the snarled tangle of their bodies going down (not to mention the fact of being bowled over), the first, wholly unexpected wave of lust hit him like a runaway freight train. His eyes felt like they were burning, his body felt like an electric current was being run through him, every nerve raw and blazing with energy, with need, and he needed to touch, his hands ached with the need to reach out, to grasp, to fill themselves, to feel, to _take_. . .

Shocked, Daniel froze (or froze as much as a person could, when in the midst of being knocked over by someone), and, instead of recovering in time to catch Chuck or at least soften the landing, went down hard underneath the taller but slighter man, all the breath forced out of his body when Chuck fetched up against his chest, slung slightly sideways across him, so that his left leg fell down along the outside of Daniel’s right leg, but curved so that his ankle was hooked behind Daniel’s foot, while his left arm was bent low around Daniel’s waist, hand caught under the small of Daniel’s back, and his right hand clung to his side just below Daniel’s hip (where he’d latched on, apparently by accident, during the fall), while his right leg . . . well, it slid firmly in between Daniel’s legs, the top of that long thigh pressing up against him with what felt like a helluva lot of intent, Chuck squirming a little as he settled across him, part of him still trying (and failing miserably) to flinch away.

(In retrospect, he’s not sure why he was so shocked, why he wasn’t expecting it. His first reaction to Chuck, when he came barreling into the building to save his brother-in-law, tranq guns in hand, hadn’t been amusement with or disappointment over Chuck’s choice of weapons, but rather a fierce surge of respect and sorrowful understanding. Daniel Shaw hates guns and he hates violence. He’s a frighteningly accurate shot and he’s very good at mayhem and destruction, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still hate himself, every time he has to resort to the use of either. Chuck’s determination to protect his family mixed with his vehement declaration that he doesn’t shoot _gun_ guns, rather than exasperating Daniel Shaw or making him impatient with the younger man, sparked empathy, compassion, protectiveness, and a surge of warmth that had him taking the gun away from Chuck and shooting himself without so much as a second thought. When Chuck and Devon brought him back, it was to Chuck that he instinctively turned, against Chuck that he automatically leaned, Chuck who’s confusion and fear and distrust he immediately sought to levy with a wide, warm smile. Chuck, whose tentative smile back was so dazzling, it was like looking into the sun.)

If it hadn’t been for long-ingrained instincts, screaming at him that he couldn’t permit himself to end up on the bottom if he were taken down in any fight (not if he wanted to win the battle. Hell, not if he wanted to survive the confrontation) and automatically prompting him to motion almost as soon as he hit the floor, Chuck likely would’ve found out in swift order just how much Agent Shaw’s traitorous body suddenly seemed to desire the continued up close and personal presence of one Charles Bartowski. As it was, instead, he rolled, snatching at Chuck’s hands as though he were in danger of being viciously attacked by those long-fingered hands as any moment (which was positively ridiculous. Even with the new Intersect, Chuck seems utterly incapable of being brutal or malevolent in any fashion), the motion of his body so forceful that the breath whooshed audibly out of Chuck as his back hit the floor.

And that’s how he ended up pinning Chuck Bartowski to the floor, his two wrists (oddly delicate, even for someone as lanky as Chuck. He’s seen enough footage to know that Chuck is almost surprisingly fit, under the oversized, layered clothes he nearly always insists on wearing – clothes Daniel Shaw intensely dislike, hating the thought that Chuck seems to think he needs to hide himself) clamped together tightly (too tightly. There would be manacling bruises, the next day) in Daniel’s left hand and not just immobilized but actively being pushed down against the floor, yanked up high over Chuck’s head to minimize his possible range of motion, legs spread wide enough to hook around Chuck’s lean hips and slide under his long legs, locking them together so that he couldn’t effectively thrash them, gripping so tightly that, though he wouldn’t see evidence of it himself, later, he would find himself sweating, aroused and guilty and filled with shame, imagining more bruises.

Despite all the surveillance equipment, even when he’d poured over all of the recordings later, he hadn’t been able to find an angle that really showed his face, but whatever Chuck had seen there, it has obviously terrified him. He’d gone very still, hardly breathing, dark eyes so wide that they looked like nothing but black pools rimmed with narrow circles of white, and whispered, a little shakily, "A-Agent Shaw? D-Daniel? Please. Let go."

That had shocked him back to himself – the tremble in Chuck’s voice – and he’d let go and been on his feet and making some inane, deliberately teasing comment about how well he fought, when there was no one of import around to see him, while taking Chuck by the hand (gently, gently!) and pulling him back to his feet. That had sent Chuck into a stammering flow of (abjectly miserable) words about how he never could seem to control when the Intersect’s flashes came or how he responded to them and that he knew this was why he’d failed spy school and how of course Agent Shaw was someone important, because the General had put him in charge and that had to mean something, didn’t it? Oh, and he was very, very sorry that one of his flashes had made him fight his new boss, even if Agent Shaw maybe seemed to have enjoyed it, a little? Somehow, despite the fact that Chuck kept looking at him like he was afraid Daniel might turn around and hit him (or do something else, far worse), he managed to make enough of his brain work to salvage the situation, calmly pointing out that it wasn’t Chuck’s fault, so he shouldn’t apologize, and that, since it had been a long time since he’d been able to spar with anyone, he had enjoyed their little encounter a great deal, until he’d so foolishly startled Chuck into losing his connection to the information being fed to him by the Intersect.

His carefully worded apology had made Chuck beam at him, all his lingering uncertainty (his fear) apparently forgotten, and he’d been able to send the young man off after a few more innocuous remarks, Chuck throwing one of those (entirely too innocently sweet) smiles back over his shoulder at him as he headed out, calling a cheerful goodnight over his shoulder. He’d managed to keep it together until he was sure Chuck had left, and then he’s very carefully made his way into one of the few rooms in Castle that he’d known was completely free of surveillance, closed the door quietly behind him, sat down with his back to that (thankfully quite solid and opaque) door, and then buried his head in his hands and proceeded to nearly tear out a couple handfuls of hair while he half laughed hysterically and half sobbed until he was dizzy and dark spots were dancing before his eyes from the lack of oxygen.

Afterwards, he’d tried very hard to convince himself it was just a momentary slip, an aberration, but it was no use. And all he could think was that he should’ve seen this coming.

And he should have. _God._ He should have. He’s read all of the files. He’s seen nearly all of the surveillance and he knows how profound an effect Chuck Bartowski has on agents who should by God know better (even if one of them is Sarah Walker and can’t necessarily be counted on to behave rationally, the other is John Casey, who, Daniel is all too well aware, had, in his most recent evals prior to this assignment, been skirting dangerously near that grey area between the more asocial end of dissocial personality disorder and outright sociopathy, which, when strayed into too far, gets agents permanently retired from duty . . . forcefully, if necessary). He knows about Bryce and his . . . regard for Chuck. Dear God in _heaven_ , that last one alone should have damned well been enough, to get him to take this young man’s powers of allure seriously.

He’s been a fool about many things, and unutterably (perhaps irrevocably) careless.

And he’s afraid that things will only get worse, the more time he spends around Chuck.

Not that removing himself from the immediate vicinity of Chuck seems to have helped matters, any, given that all he seems able to be able to concentrated fully on are the feeds from Castle and Chuck’s home. He wants to be there so badly that it feels almost as though he could will himself there, between one blink and the next, if only he could figure out how to move fast enough. The fact that the mission given to Team Bartowski (to Chuck) upon his absence has, despite technically being a successful one, been nothing but one tangled up snarled mess of _wrongness_ from start to finish only makes it that much worse.

When the General had (somewhat incredulously) asked why he thought leaving would be a good idea when he’d only just gotten assigned to the op and still had to be settling in to his new role, Daniel had argued that removing himself from the picture at the same time Chuck was given his first asset to handle (Manoosh, the young and rather greedy, borderline amoral genius the Ring had hired to try to reverse engineer as much of the second Intersect as possible, from the fragments they’d stolen) would force the young man to trust his instincts and help both to build his confidence levels and sharpen his resourcefulness. His argument had made a certain amount of sense – enough that General Beckman had agreed with him – but he is painfully aware of the fact that it was his own cowardice, his own inadequacy, that drove him to leave. He can plainly see that the opposite of what he’d predicted would happen is occurring (it’s so bad that even John Casey is frowning, as he says – in the voice of a man trying to convince himself of something – that Chuck is finally becoming a real spy. And he let’s Sarah Walker’s muttered question about whether that’s a good thing go, rather than calling her out for questioning orders), and he hates himself, for not being there to at least try to help the obviously struggling young man.

Yet, at the same time, he’s also uncomfortably aware of the fact that any such help he might attempt to offer would likely only make matters even worse than they already are. There are three possible scenarios he can imagine with horrifying clarity, if he were close enough to be able to step into that room, where Chuck is currently sitting with the bottle of Johnny Walker (Black) and the large glass tumbler, looking more miserable and self-loathing than any man as inherently good as Charles Barotowski should _ever_ look.

One: he tries to present the suffering young man his support/understanding/comfort; the offer is misconstrued as yet another jibe at his (largely only self-perceived, despite all of first Major then Colonel Casey’s sneers and Agent Walker’s insistence that Chuck’s just a normal guy. Chuck is an extremely capable, highly inventive, frighteningly intelligent man. He’s able to do things that Daniel Shaw knows for a fact even the best trained agents would never be able to pull off) inadequate spy skills, and Chuck reacts badly; they argue (or at the very least Chuck becomes angry and the rapid flow of increasingly louder and more disjointed words and wild gesticulations becomes something so like a force of nature that Daniel has to raise his voice, in turn, to be heard at all above all that sound and fury); Shaw, unable to maintain his control (anger and hurt and lust rising in him like tides, swamping him), ends up slamming Chuck back against that table, bottle and tumbler flying off to shatter and to spill on the floor, the smell of whiskey maddening, pervasive, as he ravages that still moving mouth with his own, strong enough that he needn’t take no for an answer (though Chuck might not even try to fight back, convinced he deserves nothing more or less than violation, for the trespasses he’s committed).

Two: with the very best of intentions, he offers his support/understanding/comfort; Chuck, though, pushed too far too fast, breaks apart like a flawed diamond put until too much pressure, powdering into scintillating dust; blinded by the glitter of shards and wet tracks of tears, Daniel moves in close, closer, _too_ close, Chuck turning into him like a child might, searching for reassurance; but what he gets, instead, is a tongue snaking out to lick away his tears, a mouth slanting across his, saltwater and heat and hunger, and even if Chuck might have wanted to move away, he couldn’t’ve, too tired and defeated and broken to even try to protest.

Three: he tries (quite earnestly) to offer his support/understanding/comfort; Chuck just keeps drinking, silently, steadily, refusing to even look at him; concern slowly melts into anger and transmutes to desperation, until finally, willing to try anything to get Chuck to acknowledge him, respond, _anything_ , just so long as he knows that Chuck knows he’s there for him, he reaches out to snatch the tumbler away from Chuck, who, without so much as blinking (though his eyes are closed, so it’s hard to tell if he’s flashing or not), responds by grabbing the bottle before Daniel’s hand has even reached the tumbler and flinging it at his new boss’s head; in the fight that somehow erupts (despite the fact that he initially just ducks and stands there gaping at Chuck with his mouth hanging open. Chuck, with a snarl, throws himself at Daniel, next, and defending himself is essentially hardwired in, so he reacts, and he keeps on reacting, while the room gets demolished around them), Chuck spits out that he’s everything Bryce Larkin fought so hard to protect him from becoming, now, that he’s just like Agent Shaw, and is he _happy_ , now, are they _all_ finally happy that he’s become a monster, just like _them_ ; and it’s Daniel whose tearing up while Chuck takes advantage of his momentary faltering lapse in defense, in control, to latch his mouth savagely onto his, though when they’re done with each other and Chuck climbs shakily back to his feet, face carefully blank, it’s his dark eyes that are shining with excess moisture.

If Daniel were there and if he tried to help, it would be a disaster. God, it would be _worse_ than a disaster, no matter what might actually happen. But he can’t just sit here and do nothing while a solitary, obviously suffering, self-hating Chuck drinks himself into a blind stupor, either. He physically _can’t_.

So he does the only thing he can think of, and he picks up his phone.

 _"Casey, if that’s you, I’m taking your advice and I’m not in the mood to talk, for once. Sarah, if that’s you, I’m_ really _not in the mood."_

"Chuck. It’s not Colonel Casey or Agent Walker."

There’s a perceptibly pregnant pause, and then Chuck sighs loudly, his weariness so obvious that Daniel doesn’t even have to look, to know that dark head is bowing low and Chuck rubbing wearily at his forehead with his free hand. _"Oh. You. Look, Agent Shaw, I’m sure you want to do the honors and chew my ass out for the terrible job I did, handling Manoosh, but I – "_

"Chuck. I’m not angry, upset, or disappointed in you in any way. I’m sorry you had to do this. It’s not right that – "

"Don’t. _Don’t patronize me, okay? I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed – you people make that abundantly clear quite often – but I’m not an_ idiot _. I_ know _I was pathetic. I – "_

The almost congested snarl of hurt and fury that is Chuck’s voice makes him flinch, at first, but then the words begin to sink in, and he’s arguing passionately, suddenly angry, himself. "Chuck. _Don’t_. You did _brilliantly_. You did far better than any of us could ever have had any right to expect – far batter than most agents do, when faced with their first assets, in fact. But that’s not the point. The point is that I’m sorry you had to do it at all. In fact, in pains me that _anyone_ would have to ever do such a thing. You know I don’t like guns. Well, the same principle applies, here. The things that agents have to do are far too often awful. Immoral. Soul-destroying, even. There’s no getting around that. The training spies receive before being allowed into the field is meant to help with that. But you haven’t gotten most of that training. And you were thrust into this life without your consent. You may tell yourself that you chose the second Intersect, but the truth was that it was no real choice at all, given your nature."

Chuck makes a scoffing noise so ragged that, if Daniel didn’t know better, he would assume the young man’s throat is raw from weeping. _"My_ nature _. You barely even know me! What the hell do you know about my nature?"_

Carefully, he replies, "Bryce Larkin isn’t just a name or a photograph to me, Chuck. And I’ve been studying you since the day Casey and Walker were assigned to you."

 _"But you don’t know_ me _!"_

"You’d be surprised. Don’t underestimate me, Chuck. I’m very good at what I do."

Chuck laughs wildly, at that, the sound ugly, harsh, jagged, pointedly mocking. _"Yeah, and you follow orders like a good soldier, too, I suppose. Even when it means killing yourself."_

Aware that his shooting of himself still bothers the young man and hoping to put his mind at ease about that once and for all, he firmly replies, "Even then, yes."

Flatly, Chuck declares, _"Then you’re a lunatic. You’re_ all _lunatics!"_

Mildly, he points out, "It hardly counts as death when you trust the man who’s with you to bring you safely back."

"Trust. _You really_ are _a lunatic. You don’t know_ me _, Agent Shaw!"_

"I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t let me die, Chuck."

 _"I didn’t have anything to do with it, you_ moron _!"_ For a second, Chuck almost sounds like Casey, and Daniel’s conscience twinges again, this time over letting someone as damaged as Casey be one of Chuck’s primary handlers for so long. _"Why the hell don’t you understand that? I’m_ not _the one who saved you! The only time I’ve been able to access any of the information in the Intersect on healing was when Casey got shot and they were just gonna let him bleed to death if I couldn’t get the bullet out of him, and even then I was only able to do it because Devon was there, to help me! If Devon hadn’t been there, you would’ve been toast!"_

"And who was it who calmed Dr. Woodcomb down enough to even try to save me? Who was it who kept his head and figured out what I had done, so that he could get the good doctor to understand it was possible to save me?"

"That’s not the same damn thing as – "

"Nonsense. It wouldn’t have happened without you. Just as the other missions your team has accomplished would never have been possible – much less successful – without you. Do you have any idea how many lives you’ve already saved, besides mine? When I told you that you’ve already gone on more missions than most agents do in a lifetime, I wasn’t kidding, Chuck."

 _"Does it_ matter _? How many lives have we ruined or ended in that time, huh?"_

"Chuck. You _know_ it matters. Sometimes, the needs of the many – "

"No. No! _Don’t tell me you buy into that bullshit!"_ Chuck slams his hand against the table in his fury, voice raised in a hoarse shout. _"The needs of the many don’t always outweigh the needs of the few or the one! It’s not right to kill people or destroy them, just so the freakin’ many can keep on living their little zombie lives without knowing what the hell’s really going on in the world!"_

"Chuck – "

 _"Don’t._ Don’t! _Don’t tell me it’s a difficult life or that spies only do awful things so that everyone else can sleep safe at night or any other of that self-justifying_ bullshit _! Wrong is_ wrong _and its not something you can turn just on or off or a sliding scale you can adjust at will, to suit whatever kind of situation you find yourself in! If the world’s so fraked up that people have to do shit like this and governments are so amoral that they figure it’s alright, it’s the norm, it’s the way we’ve_ always _done business and always_ will _do business, then what the hell are we even fighting for? What about humanity is even worth_ saving _? If we – "_

" _Chuck._ Don’t. That’s defeatist talk. You don’t really believe that," Daniel quickly insists, alarmed at the turn the conversation has taken. "You know damn well there’s plenty about humanity to defend, plenty to fight for, to love and want to protect – "

The noise Chuck makes sounds more like a sob than a laugh, and he wants so badly to be able to reach out and touch that lowered head that the hand not holding the phone doubles over into an impotent fist of frustrated rage. _"Like_ what _, exactly?_ Like what _?"_

"The people. Your friends. Your family – "

Chuck only shakes his head, shoulders bowing in defeat. _"Ellie would hate me, if she knew even half of the things I’ve done, in the name of_ protecting _her and the people I care about. I couldn’t even blame her for it. I hate myself, too."_

"You don’t. Chuck, you don’t believe that. You know that’s not true. Your sister loves you and she would never – "

Snarling again, Chuck snaps, _"I think I know my own_ sister _better than you do, dammit! I think I know what I believe – "_

"You’re hurting and upset and you’ve been drinking and you’re not thinking clearly right now, Chuck. It’s all affecting your judgment. Otherwise, you’d know that your sister and your friends are only upset with you right now because they love you and they’re worried about you."

 _"They_ hate me _because they know I’ve been_ lying _to them! And I can’t ever tell them the truth, even if I wanted to, even if you people wouldn’t burn every single one of us, like I did that poor stupid greedy kid, because I know it would only put them even more in danger than they already are, just by being around me! Jesus Christ, you think I haven’t learned my lesson with Devon? If I hadn’t opened my big mouth in the first place, he never would’ve gotten so mixed up in all this! He wouldn’t be in so much trouble with Ellie and jumping at every loud noise and strange shadow because of the ugliness he’s had to see, because of me! It’d be better for them if you people would just pack me and all the rest of your spy stuff up so we could all just disappear some night! If I weren’t so damned selfish, I would’ve asked to stay in Prague!"_ Chuck insists.

Daniel automatically shakes his head, even though no one can see him."It wouldn’t do any good to draw more attention to yourself and this area by vanishing, Chuck. You know that. You’re just upset – "

"Upset," Chuck flatly repeats. _"Agent Shaw, I just sent a kid who’s basically what I would’ve been, without someone like Ellie to help keep me grounded, to what amounts to a very deep concrete hole, for the rest of his life. I gained his trust, and I betrayed him. And for what? For_ what _? For having been treated so badly by all the people around him his entire life that he didn’t have a reason to wonder about what the weapon he was working on might be used to do? For being too stupid to realize that he was in over his head and that life isn’t like the movies or the video games and that people who get hurt or killed because of our actions don’t just get back up again and go on about their lives when a mission’s over? I lie to everyone, everyday, all the freakin’ time. The two individuals I spend the majority of my time with have killed enough people to populate at least an entire town. I’m not_ upset _. I don’t have the_ right _to be upset, because I’m turning into just as much of a monster as Bryce was afraid I would."_ The noise Chuck makes is so awful and so painful that Daniel feels like someone has slammed a knife into his gut and not just twisted it but sawed it raggedly back and forth. _"It’s welcome to the insane asylum, for me."_

"Stop that. Bryce wasn’t afraid you’d become a monster. And you’re _not_ a monster. So just _stop that_. This is a hard life. You’re right about that. And you’ve done the best that you can to adjust, I know – and Chuck, you really have done far better than we’ve ever had any right to even hope you might – but this life is still largely alien to you. And because the need is so great and we are pushing you so hard, so quickly, you’re having to do things and see things that you aren’t truly prepared for. I know you fear you’re somehow failing us. But what you’re feeling, now, that’s what makes you _human_ , Chuck. That’s what makes you the only person on the planet I know who can be trusted with the sheer amount of knowledge and potential power contained by an Intersect."

_"Don’t you talk about Bryce! You don’t have the right to talk about him. Where the hell were you when the Ring was coming after him? Oh, wait, I know, you were balancing the needs of the few or the one against the many, and Bryce just happened to come up short that day, right?"_

"That’s not _fair_!" The words escape before he even knows he means to protest, and, on the screen, he can see Chuck recoil with surprise, brown eyes blinking, startled and confused at Daniel’s vehemence. Forcing himself to take a deep, calming breath, he continues, voice much quieter and at least closer to calm, "Chuck, you may find this hard to believe, but you’re not the only one who misses Bryce Larkin. If I’d known he was in danger, I would have been there."

"Why _? Because you think of him as another one of your agents and you take care of your agents – or at least keep them alive, even if you obviously don’t give a shit about them, as people?"_ Chuck only bitterly demands.

"Because he’s a phenomenal person and he deserved better," he snaps back, unable to be entirely careful in his response (he knows all the reasons for letting Chuck believe Bryce is dead. He knows they can’t spare the time and resources it would take to track Bryce down, when it’s all too possible that the Ring may have killed him, in the meantime, anyway, or that he might have been dead and too damaged to revive, when the Ring operatives took him away. Somehow, none of that seems to matter, though. Daniel still feels like the world’s biggest heel, for keeping the possibility, the hope, that Bryce might still be alive away from the one person in the world he knows Bryce wouldn’t want to be grieving for him or worrying about him).

There’s a pause – on the screen, Chuck frowns, as though confused and trying to make up his mind about something – before he shrugs and notes, _"Ah. Guilty conscience."_

Evasively, he offers, "I told you. What you’re feeling? It’s what keeps us human, Chuck."

Chuck makes that bitter, broken noise again (which Daniel is rapidly coming to hate) that bears only the most superficial of resemblances to a true laugh. _"And here I was, under the impression that spies aren’t supposed to really feel a whole lot, Agent Shaw."_

"Daniel."

_"Excuse me?"_

"My name is Daniel, Chuck. I know you know that. I’ve heard you use it before."

That also seems to throw him. Chuck frowns again, shoulders straightening slightly. Hesitantly, he half notes and half asks, _"Uhm, okay, not all too sure where that came from, but in case you’re wondering, I’m trying to be here and I was under the impression that it’s not all the professional or polite to call your new boss by his first name, now is it?"_

Daniel sighs. "Chuck. Let me try to put this in terms I know you’ll understand. I’m worried about you. I’d like to help. If you would only listen – "

Chuck’s still slightly puzzled face abruptly blanks, dark eyes going perceptibly cold. _"So you can assuage your guilty conscience? Thank you. But no. I think we’re through with this conversation, Agent Shaw."_

"This conversation is through only when I say it is, Charles Bartowski."

Shocked and apparently thoroughly incensed, Chuck scowls, and shouts, _"You can’t order me to – "_

"Chuck. As you yourself have pointed out, I _am_ your boss."

Chuck bares his teeth. It’s not a smile. _"Back to coercion. Why am I not surprised?"_

"Chuck, let me ask you something. You ever wonder why Batman doesn’t much like Superman, in the earlier comics and such?"

 _"Huh?"_ The puzzled frown is back, but Chuck’s also slightly leaning forwards, curious.

He takes it as a good sign. "Batman and Superman. Ever wonder about the animosity?"

_"Uhm, flight envy? Xenophobia? Unrequited lust, viewed as an inexcusable weakness?"_

The third offered explanation makes Daniel blink, startled and suddenly dry-mouthed. It takes him a moment before he can make himself speak. "Bruce Wayne’s past didn’t exactly make it easy for him to trust or rely on others or take the good intentions of others on faith. At first, he had no idea who Superman really was or his background, as Clark Kent. He saw only an alien – an alien with godlike powers, an alien no one would be able to stop, if he chose for some reason to turn on humanity – whose motivations and emotions he could not be sure of or guess at and whose physiological and psychological makeup he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Suspicion was automatic for him, as was planning for the worst. If there was even a _possibility_ that this being, who was so unquestionably powerful, didn’t think or feel like humans, didn’t process emotion like humans, didn’t feel any true sense of belonging to or responsibility for his adoptive planet and the humans who populated it – if he, in fact, was merely biding time, softening humanity up, so that he could conquer the planet at his leisure, without taking any undue personal risks – then he was a risk. Quite possibly the most terrible risk mankind would likely ever be faced with. With no easy way to get close enough to the alien to be sure of him, no real way of checking the facts reported on Superman by such reporters as Lois Lane and Clark Kent – who were quite obvious in their infatuation and respect for the alien and whose news articles likely read as much like propaganda as reporting, to someone as slow to trust as Bruce Wayne – and no way of knowing how Superman might be stopped, if he were to ever go rogue, it’s really not all that surprising that Batman would respond with distrust, dislike, and open animosity, even to obvious overtures of friendship."

Chuck’s frowning again, clearly bewildered and at a loss. _"Oookay . . . "_

Quickly, he explains, "My point is, Chuck, that because Batman had no way of knowing how very _human_ Superman is, he was afraid that this unknown and clearly powerful alien being might have ulterior and quite evil motivations for his actions – no matter how benevolent they might appear – and so reacted to him with hostility. If he’d known that Kal-El had been raised essentially as a human and that his motivations and emotions were extremely human – love, responsibility, sorrow, guilt, hope – then he might have responded quite differently."

"Okay, I’m confused. Are you supposed to be Superman or Batman in this story?"

He can’t quite help himself. He laughs. Chuck flinches a little, at first, but after a few moments, the corners of his mouth twitch ever so slightly upwards. "Neither one, I’m afraid, though it would certainly come in handy to have them on our side, right about now, wouldn’t it?"

Chuck sounds wistful. _"Yeah. It would. They’d have the Ring dismantled and figure out a way to either whip me into shape or get this damned thing out of my head in no time. But I still don’t understand what that has to do with this – with us."_

"Human emotion, Chuck. Bruce Wayne was afraid that Superman might be a monster, because he didn’t know of Clark Kent and so didn’t know that Kal-El could feel or what he might feel. So Batman feared, and disliked, and distrusted. At least at first. Later, shame at his assumptions may very well have gotten in the way. Or any other number of things, as you’ve pointed out," he adds, smiling a little. "You’re afraid you’re becoming a monster, aren’t you?"

"You know what I did. You know pretty much all the things I’ve done, since Bryce sent me that email. And you probably know a lot more than I do about what else I’m going to end up doing, before all’s said and done. So why are you even asking that?"

"The very fact that you’re afraid – that you’re ashamed of yourself, that you’re guilty about what you did, even though you can’t, logically, come up with another solution to the problem that wouldn’t be even worse – means that you’re not a monster, Chuck," he earnestly begins to explain, in response. "As long as you can still feel those things – duty, love, responsibility, shame, the resolve to do better – then you’ll be fine. Agents who lose sight of that often lose the better part of their humanity. And they either become reckless or rogue, and, either way, most often end up getting themselves killed. It’s a lesson I don’t think your handlers have ever seen fit to pass along to you. But it’s no less true, for that."

There’s a beat of silence, and then another, and another, and Daniel is beginning to truly worry when Chuck tilts his head up, a slight, sweet smile curving his mouth. _"So, what, I’m supposed to be Superman, then? I hate to tell you this, Daniel, but you’ve got more of the look and physique for that than I do. Give me a suit with enough gadgets, and_ maybe _I could pass as a Batman wannabe, but Superman? Buddy, I think you’re stretching."_

Daniel grins triumphantly. "Well, maybe we need a new name for you, then."

 _"Besides Geek-Boy and Moron?_ Wow _. Another moniker. Watch me dance with joy."_

"That Casey. He’s a real charmer, huh?"

Chuck snorts something that sounds a lot more like real laughter. _"Well, we can’t blame him too much for it. I’m pretty sure he was raised by wolves, after all. Hey, did you know he has an entire range of grunts, and they all signify something different? I’ve been making a list. If you’d like to come over sometime, I could run you through what I’ve got down so far. It might help, since you’re the boss now and all."_

The surge of hope he feels is so strong that not even the most ruthless will could have crushed it. And he’s not exactly ruthless. He smiles again, and leans forward, closer to the monitor, eyes tracing over the curve of Chuck’s smile. "I’d like that very much. Oh, and just so you know? You’re not the only one to be stuck with a bad nickname. I had to put up with being called Farmboy for years, after making the tactical mistake of admitting that I’m from a small town in Kansas."

"Really _? Huh."_ There’s a slight pause, and then Chuck grins and teasingly asks, _"You sure you’re not Superman?"_

"Pretty sure." _If I were, I would’ve saved you from this._ "But thanks for the compliment."

 _"Well . . . alright, then. I guess I trust you to tell me the truth."_ There’s another short pause, and then, with another grin, Chuck slyly asks, _"Jedi, maybe?"_

Daniel laughs again. "I wish! It would make the job much easier. Though I’m not entirely sure I’d be able to resist the temptation of using a mind-trick off the job, so I’m not sure how good of a Jedi I’d make," he sheepishly adds.

Chuck snorts laughter. _"Better you than me. I’d probably trip over my feet and skewer myself on my own lightsaber."_

Daniel shakes his head, amused. "Somehow, I doubt that very much. You seem the kind of person to respect a weapon of such elegance and power."

_"I don’t know about that, but thanks for the vote of confidence, I suppose. And I guess . . . I guess I ought to go drink a big glass of water and take some aspirin before I go to bed. See if I can stave off the pounding headache I’d otherwise end up with tomorrow, from trying to take Casey’s advice."_

"Good idea. You get some rest, Chuck. Things will look better in the morning. Promise."

Chuck grins, lopsidedly. _"Okay. Give me a call sometime, when you get back in, and we can arrange that visit. Maybe even relax a little, watch a movie, if you want."_

"That would be very nice, Chuck. Thank you. Good night."

_"’Night, Daniel."_

Chuck’s smiling as he lowers the phone, thumb automatically ending the call. He sighs a little, still smiling, and then yawns, stretching, before standing and heading for the kitchen, for that class of water and a couple of aspirin.

Daniel watches (just in case), until Chuck’s in his bed, breathing evenly, asleep.

He’s almost positive that the entire conversation he just had with Chuck was a bad idea. That nothing good will come of it. And that he most certainly should not have agreed to pay a visit, alone, to Chuck’s home. Nothing good could _possibly_ come of that, even if he does, by some miracle, manage to regain control over himself before then.

At the moment, though, with Chuck sleeping easily in his bed – face relaxed, looking very young and carefree and innocent, in his slumber – instead of tossing and turning from nightmares or passed out from too much alcohol, he finds it entirely too difficult to care.

He’s been able to truly help Chuck. At the moment, that’s all that matters to him.

He can go back to worrying about the fact that he’s apparently quite happily lost what little remains of his mind tomorrow.

　

　

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Clarification Notes: 1).** I am still of the opinion that Sarah’s explanation to Agent Shaw for her time “off the grid” in episode five of season three (“Chuck Versus First Class”) is just so much hooey. If the writers didn’t intend for the show’s fans to immediately leap to the conclusion that Sarah was lying through her teeth to her new superior to avoid revealing just how far off the grid she’s mentally fallen (in that she has gone out of her way to try to get not just any asset/agent but the human Intersect, Chuck, to leave the Agency and run with her) and convince him to allow her to remain one of Chuck’s handlers, then they really shouldn’t have made such a big deal in the first episode of the season about Sarah getting on that train using the identity she’d put together to permit her to run with Chuck, even after he’d told her that he couldn’t go with her. 
> 
> Thus, I’m still of the opinion that, until they actually show us Bryce’s body being destroyed on this show, it would be unwise to simply assume (especially on the word of an habitual liar like Sarah Walker) that the man is, in fact, dead. In fact, until they’ve shown his body being destroyed on the show, it is my opinion that the Ring operatives, having captured Bryce Larkin, most likely would have kept him (after reviving him, of course, if he was, in fact, actually dead, and not just passed out from blood loss/shock/pain. Remember, folks, Chuck is the only one who was with him, at the time, and Chuck – especially Chuck without an Intersect in his head – is not exactly a reliable judge, when it comes to telling if someone is alive or dead), in hopes of getting some use out of him (perhaps even, eventually, hoping to make him one of their Agents, by brainwashing him via a new Intersect program, as soon as they’ve got one of their own up and running). 
> 
> In the case of this particular story, however, I’m willing to let the matter of Bryce Larkin slide somewhat, due to the fact that, given the kind of track record Casey and Sarah have for telling Chuck only as much of the truth as they think he needs to know at any given time (i.e., given their tendency to keep certain things to themselves or to even lie outright to Chuck about some events, to avoid worrying/upsetting him unduly), I can also see how it would be possible that Chuck might not know that Bryce is, technically, missing rather than confirmed killed in action, if he was never told that Bryce (or his body) wasn’t recovered from the Ring and that the Ring, in fact, took him into custody before Chuck could flash on the new Intersect and defeat the other Ring operatives, at the end of the final episode of season two (“Chuck Versus the Ring”).
> 
>  **2).** Apparently, unlike a lot of other fans of the show, I believe that Agent Daniel Shaw is both a tragic and a highly sympathetic character who adds quite a bit to the show and seems destined to play a pivotal role in Chuck’s evolution from asset to active agent for the CIA. Given what I’ve seen of him in the show so far, frankly, I like him more than at least one of Chuck’s handlers (Sarah, whose lies and yo-yo hot/cold emotions are getting a bit old, after two seasons, in my opinion), and he strikes me as more immediately sympathetic than either one of Chuck’s handlers were, at the beginning of the show, when they were originally introduced to us. Given that Chuck Bartowski seems to have a gift for winning people over and causing them to form attachments to him that they normally would eschew with other beings (witness, for example, Bryce Larkin, who refers to Chuck as his only friend, John Casey, who has grown so fond of Chuck that he’s gone against orders to help Chuck rescue his father and covered for him and Sarah with the General, and Sarah Walker herself, who, after having been somewhat burned by her romantic relationship with Bryce, nonetheless seems to exhibit a fascination for Chuck and a powerful attraction to at least the idea of Chuck and a relationship with him, with someone “normal”), it seems entirely plausible to me that Agent Shaw’s personal evolution, over the course of his time on the show, should revolve around a growing fondness for/attachment to Chuck.
> 
> While it is entirely likely that the possibility of a series of events like the ones portrayed in this story will eventually Jossed by the rest of the show’s third season, it is my opinion that this or something very like this could easily happen on the show, and, unless Shaw turns out to be a double-agent of some kind, it seems to me that, no matter what else may or may not happen on the show, someone could still convincingly argue that Shaw’s reaction to Chuck, as charted here, could’ve been going on behind the scenes, whether there’s ever any obvious evidence of it on the show or not.


End file.
